So, what's with the LP Myanmar guide book anyway. Very comprehensive in its listings but full of moralistic platitudes about whether one should visit or not. Perhaps it should be titled 'how to not let your money get into the sweaty hands of the Tatmadaw'. LP refuses to list government owned hotels (often naming them so that you don't end up there by mistake) and by including an extensive chapter on the history of the military and on its dubious nature.
Let's forget about the implicit assumption that underlies the "should you go" section in the guide. That the average LP reader is unaware of the sad record of the Burmese military junta and is too lazy to do the spadework himself or herself. Focus instead on the weakness of the listing government owned hotel to not let your money get into the hands of the junta. The reality on the ground is very different. Every business in Burma that touches a tourist has some connection with the government. The nature of the connection may vary from bribes to low level functionaries to get and keep licenses to the cohabitative behavior of the multi-millionaires who run large businesses. Simply stated, a dollar revenue business cannot exist in Burma without some kickback to the Tatmadaw. One hotel owner explained the financial structure of his business, license fees, bribes to officials, etc. and his contention was that, in the best of times, 60% of his dollar revenue goes to the government. It is next to impossible, and possibly dangerous, to hide any of this revenue. At the higher end, hotels like Traders and airlines like Air Bagan are owned by drug lords (often ex rebels now in cahoots with the government). Millions of dollars flow from these "private" businesses to the military; directly and indirectly keeping the junta in power. Why it is ok to list Traders but not the Thiripyitsaya Sakura Hotel in Bagan is not at all clear. Is it somehow better to split your money between the government and a drug baron than to give all of it to the government? What about all the government run ferries? LP recommends the Mandalay Bagan ferry, the Myitkyina-Bhamo-Mandalay ferry, the Pathein ferry, all demanding high dollar amounts from tourists. (In an interesting twist, the junta privatized the Mandalay-Bagan express ferry and the price went up from $16 to $25. My guess is that the government probably gets a little more than it got before and some other baddie gets the rest of your money. You, poor tourist, are more out of pocket than before.)
Sadly, it would seem that LP is trying to have its cake and eat it too by publishing a guidebook for Burma and then hedging about the morality of going or not going. All you get as a result is a trivilization of history, a bunch of platitudes, an incomplete guidebook, and more revenue for LP. A truly principled publisher would either:
1. Not publish a guidebook at all.
2. Publish a comprehensive guidebook with full listings and no moralistic claptrap. Full listings would include reviews of government run hotels.
3. Publish a guidebook that restricts itself to describing the historical and cultural background of the sights but has no business listings whatsoever. This would probably be the best of the three alternatives.
For a good review of the weaknesses of the LP approach, see Publish and Be Damned from the Irrawaddy Times.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
The Untouchable (L'Intouchable) Benoit Jacquot (2006)
It is always interesting seeing India through the eyes of the West. The India I see is transparent, familiar and easy to navigate. The crowds, the bazaars, the poverty, social hierarchies seem natural and go unnoticed by my conscious eye. To Western eyes, however, as is obvious in Benoit Jacquot new film The Untouchable (L’intouchable), India is a mysterious, crowded, and hard to fathom place. His India is across a border that the Western visitor cannot hope to cross. His India is, in a sense, untouchable.
Like many great French cinema directors, Jacquot is the master of understatement. Nothing much happens in the film. Jeanne (Isild Le Besco), a penniless young actress drifting through life discovers that her father might have been Indian. Her mother is not totally sure, but who else could it have been. Obviously confused about this new Indian side to her, she impulsively decides to visit India. Since she doesn’t have the money, she signs up to act in a simulated sex scene to pay her way (the emotional distance with which Isild Le Besco plays this scene is worth the price of admission alone).
When Jeanne arrives in Delhi, the picture changes. From the muted colors, empty streets, and soft sounds of France, the film is suddenly full of the sound, people, and vibrant colors of India. In the India part, Jacquot lets the camera do the talking and one can see the wonder that is his India - populated, anarchic, and overwhelming. Jeanne immerses herself in India and the camera does the same. In one sequence, the camera stays still while a seething mass of humanity rushes by on rickshaws, motorcycles, cars; each vehicle competing for the limited space available on the road. She buys a 3AC ticket to Varanasi but ends up traveling in unreserved second class, perhaps to experience the India she thinks that Indians do (or perhaps the director was careless!).
In Benaras, she meets the son of the Dom she thinks is her father (no, not a gratuitous coincidence, she asks around for the Dom by name) and is invited to his sisters wedding. At the wedding, she discovers that her father, if he is indeed her father, is not the Dom but rather is the Dom’s brother Arnab, a school teacher in Delhi. She returns to Delhi where she follows Arnab from the school but then returns to France without meeting him. He, in a sense, remains the last untouchable.
While the India/France contrast works well in the film, Jacquot, unfortunately, overplays the untouchable angle. On the flight to Delhi, Jeanne is seated next to a mysterious Indian, an untouchable himself, who mysteriously disappears mid-flight through the machinations of the Flight Attendants. This episode, designed presumably to lecture the audience about untouchables, is seeped in the mysterious ways of the Orient of books like The Moonstone. These mid-nineteenth century ideas have no place in a modern film.
In another episode, a gay French man takes Jeanne along to visit his cousin, a sister of St. Theresa at a convent near Varanasi. In the conversation that follows, the gay man and his cousin seem to be on different planets and one can only assume that Jacquot is trying to imply that all human relationships are untouchable.
In summary, the film is worth seeing just to see the familiar sights of India through the eyes of an outsider. But, as cinema, the film was a little disappointing with a simplistic message and a storyline that is, um, untouchable.
Like many great French cinema directors, Jacquot is the master of understatement. Nothing much happens in the film. Jeanne (Isild Le Besco), a penniless young actress drifting through life discovers that her father might have been Indian. Her mother is not totally sure, but who else could it have been. Obviously confused about this new Indian side to her, she impulsively decides to visit India. Since she doesn’t have the money, she signs up to act in a simulated sex scene to pay her way (the emotional distance with which Isild Le Besco plays this scene is worth the price of admission alone).
When Jeanne arrives in Delhi, the picture changes. From the muted colors, empty streets, and soft sounds of France, the film is suddenly full of the sound, people, and vibrant colors of India. In the India part, Jacquot lets the camera do the talking and one can see the wonder that is his India - populated, anarchic, and overwhelming. Jeanne immerses herself in India and the camera does the same. In one sequence, the camera stays still while a seething mass of humanity rushes by on rickshaws, motorcycles, cars; each vehicle competing for the limited space available on the road. She buys a 3AC ticket to Varanasi but ends up traveling in unreserved second class, perhaps to experience the India she thinks that Indians do (or perhaps the director was careless!).
In Benaras, she meets the son of the Dom she thinks is her father (no, not a gratuitous coincidence, she asks around for the Dom by name) and is invited to his sisters wedding. At the wedding, she discovers that her father, if he is indeed her father, is not the Dom but rather is the Dom’s brother Arnab, a school teacher in Delhi. She returns to Delhi where she follows Arnab from the school but then returns to France without meeting him. He, in a sense, remains the last untouchable.
While the India/France contrast works well in the film, Jacquot, unfortunately, overplays the untouchable angle. On the flight to Delhi, Jeanne is seated next to a mysterious Indian, an untouchable himself, who mysteriously disappears mid-flight through the machinations of the Flight Attendants. This episode, designed presumably to lecture the audience about untouchables, is seeped in the mysterious ways of the Orient of books like The Moonstone. These mid-nineteenth century ideas have no place in a modern film.
In another episode, a gay French man takes Jeanne along to visit his cousin, a sister of St. Theresa at a convent near Varanasi. In the conversation that follows, the gay man and his cousin seem to be on different planets and one can only assume that Jacquot is trying to imply that all human relationships are untouchable.
In summary, the film is worth seeing just to see the familiar sights of India through the eyes of an outsider. But, as cinema, the film was a little disappointing with a simplistic message and a storyline that is, um, untouchable.
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